


lick the spoon

by wayfxrer



Series: the assassin [1]
Category: Andromeda Six (Visual Novel)
Genre: ... for now that is, Baking Shenanigans, But the kitchen stays clean don't worry, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Sexual Tension, kinda spicy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 09:02:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23968804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayfxrer/pseuds/wayfxrer
Summary: “Are you going to keep staring, or are you going to hand over the butter?”In which Damon ropes Nova into helping out with Cal’s birthday cake.
Relationships: Damon Reznor/Original Female Character(s), Damon Reznor/Traveler
Series: the assassin [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755367
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62





	lick the spoon

Nova hates to admit it, but there’s something ridiculously endearing about how serious Damon is about baking. She watches the assassin as he sifts some flour into a bowl, the action casual but well-practiced. 

“Are you going to keep staring, or are you going to hand over the butter?” He drawls, side-eyeing her. 

Flinching a little at the call-out, she rolls her eyes. “You could always ask nicely, you know.”

Damon snorts at this, and Nova pads over to the small refrigerator in the corner of the ship’s galley kitchen. “Ask nicely? In case you didn’t know, sweetheart, I extract information from unwilling souls for a living. Asking _nicely_ doesn’t align itself with what I do.” 

Plunking the block of butter down in front of him, she shoots back, “The last time I checked, I wasn’t one of your… extractees, Damon. Now, are you going to tell me what you need my help with, or not?”

Damon’s eyes flicker, his brows creasing in that way that insinuates he’s about to do some bodily harm, but she stands her ground, waiting for his reply. This wasn’t her first rodeo with Damon, and she wasn’t one to be pushed around either. 

“Who said I needed your help?” He scoffs, suddenly swiping a trail of flour down Nova’s cheek with his finger. She yelps in response, batting his hand away, and Damon bites back a smile. “I just need to work faster, that’s all. Cal’s surprise party is in a few hours, and Aya will definitely have words to say if she knows I overslept and was late to the baking. _You_ are here for me to command as I please so I can cover my own ass, _princess_. Don’t be mistaken. Or have you already forgotten that you chose to report to me?”

Nova sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. She knows better than to believe that Damon means everything that he says, but he could be such a pain in her ass sometimes. “Okay, stop. Fine. I’ll help. But I’m doing this for Cal, not you.”

Damon’s signature shit-eating grin is blinding, and not for the first time, Nova wonders just how many sorry individuals have been struck dumb at the sight.

_Stupid, handsome assassins and their charming, charming ways,_ she laments. _A girl really can’t catch a break around here._

“Whatever you want to tell yourself, princess,” he shrugs. “Now roll those sleeves of yours up, and get to work.”

✧✧✧

The baking process continues on without much of a hitch, much to Nova’s surprise. It’s like Damon is under a thrall of silence as he goes through the motions, too focused on the task at hand to even throw witty taunts at her. Not that she’s complaining - she finds that she actually enjoys watching him as he works, studying the way he carefully measures the ingredients and tips them into the bowl.

And besides, with his gloves off for once and his toned, muscled forearms in full view, it was definitely easy on the eyes. 

It had been Damon’s idea to make a giant, birthday cake sized petit gateau for everyone to share (Nova had protested that in that case it wasn’t a _petit_ gateau anymore, if he caught her drift, but one look from the assassin had her zipping her lips shut), citing it as one of Cal’s childhood favourites. And things were going smoothly, to say the least. 

For Damon, that is. 

Granted, Nova wasn’t new to baking - if anything, she prided herself on being quite experienced. And to be fair, this was her first time making gateau - but for Seleota’s sake, was the dough supposed to be _this_ hard to mix? She was thankful that Damon was on the other end of the kitchen shelves, looking for a dash of liquor to add into the gateau and too preoccupied to notice her predicament, but her arms were really starting to hurt. She huffs out a little breath, dragging the whisk through the impossibly thick batter and watching in dismay as the metal began to bend at a treacherous angle. 

_Maybe we got some part of the recipe wrong,_ she starts to worry. Cal’s party was in an hour, and they hadn’t even put the cake in to bake yet. They’d even gone and used up all the ingredients. If anything went wrong now, they wouldn’t even have the time or resources to start again from the ground up.

Just as Nova begins to consider calling for Damon and opening herself up to his inevitable jabs at her incompetence, the assassin himself appears like a ghost behind her, enveloping her in his warmth.

“Don’t use that,” he says calmly, taking the whisk out of her hands and briskly tossing it into the sink. Nova’s too shocked by his sudden closeness to respond, and her sudden speechlessness only worsens when Damon places a sturdy wooden spoon in her grip, guiding her in a firm but gentle stirring motion with his hands clasped over hers.

“Like this,” he murmurs, his breath ghosting past her cheek, and Nova’s spine goes rigid. Her nerves go into overdrive, Damon flooding her senses, and she debates pushing him away and stepping out of the circle of his arms, granting herself some peace of mind to regain her composure.

But.

But Damon is close to her in a way that he’s never been before, gentle in a way that she hasn’t always seen, and maybe she could forgive herself for wanting the moment to last a little while longer, regardless of how wrecked she might be at the end of it. 

“It’s a lot better with this,” she offers quietly, breaking the silence. “The whisk wasn’t doing its job, I guess.”

He chuckles lowly, the vibrations echoing in the space between them. “Don’t blame the whisk,” he says, playing along. “This just wasn’t the right job for it, that’s all.”

Nova hums thoughtfully in answer. “I think I’ve got it, thanks,” she assures, shifting away from him, but Damon doesn’t budge. If anything, he grips her hands tighter, enough to communicate the intention that he’s not going anywhere. Nova’s hips are pressed against the counter now, painfully aware of every inch of Damon that _is_ touching her and every inch of him that _isn’t_ , and she’s finding it far too difficult to breathe. 

“What’s wrong, princess?” He teases, and she doesn’t have to look at him to know that he’s smirking like the cat that got the cream. “Can’t handle a little hands-on instruction? If you’re good,” he whispers into her ear, “I might even let you lick the spoon.”

This game of theirs - the constant push and pull, the magnetised attraction - addictive as it was, it was starting to chip away at her patience. Her grip tightens around the wooden handle, and Nova inhales sharply through her nose, a defiant idea sparking in her mind. She was never one for acting out recklessly, but Damon was always pushing the right buttons at all the wrong times. And maybe, just maybe… it was about time he got a taste of his own medicine. 

Nova steels her nerves before shaking him off and spinning around to face him. Raising a scarred eyebrow at her, he braces his hands on the counter behind her, leaning forward and caging her in. She can already sense the mockery that’s loaded and ready on his tongue, and decides that she’s going to be one step ahead.

So she raises the spoon to her lips, and without missing a beat, slowly licks away a long stripe of chocolate batter with her tongue, making sure to lock her eyes on his.

The air between them tenses, gathering static like the sky before a lightning storm, and Nova takes her time licking the leftover chocolate off of her lips. Damon’s gaze, usually cool and uninterested, is burning like an ice-blue flame, his pupils blown and his knuckles white as they grip the counter. 

“I think I’ve been pretty good,” Nova smiles sweetly, tauntingly, and Damon sucks in a small breath despite himself. “I think I deserve something sweet.”

She almost doesn’t register it when Damon’s hands clutch her waist, his head dipping to the curve of her neck, and suddenly it occurs to Nova that perhaps she failed to think this one through. 

“That’s cute, princess.” His voice is a low rumble in his throat, and she feels his hands creep higher, cupping her ribs. “But good girls are supposed to wait for their reward, and you just set yourself up for punishment.”

Nova tries not to tremble at his proximity, at his breath on her neck exactly where she wants him, and tries to think of something, _anything_ to say. But the words die when he presses his lips against the skin just above her beating pulse, the touch feather-light but ultra potent in its devastation. 

The kiss lights her up like a match to gasoline - something miniscule yet so, so volatile. She’s sure she’s shaking now, one of her hands fisted in the material of his black coat, and she feels like she’s burning from the inside out. 

_Desire is a dangerous thing, a hell we choose willingly to perish in_ , she remembered reading once. 

She’s starting to think they’re right.

Damon kisses her neck again, torturously soft, and Nova squeezes her eyes shut, trying to hold on to what’s left of her reason, trying not to imagine what would happen if she just gave in right fucking _now_ , damning all the consequences to hell and just telling him to put his mouth where his mind is —

That is, until Ayame bursts through the kitchen doors, calling Nova’s name with a volume that could rival the ship’s PA system. 

“Nova? _NOVA_?” Aya hollers, scanning the kitchen frantically until her eyes land on one very flustered runaway princess. “There you are, I was looking all over the ship for you!”

Nova blinks at Aya, still unable to process the interruption or the sudden loss of Damon’s warmth. She glances at the culprit, who’s somehow already on the other side of the kitchen prepping the oven, and wonders just how fast his reflexes are for him to move like that. “What for?”

Aya hurries over to her, catching her around the wrist and dragging her towards the exit. “June and Bash and I still aren’t done decorating yet, and there’s only so long Ryona can stall the captain with talk of Lotalis fruits! You’re our Plan B.”

The pilot doesn’t give Nova a chance to say goodbye, and they leave the assassin to himself in the kitchen. Finally alone, he notices a rogue streak of chocolate on the back of his hand, bending forward to lick it into his mouth.

“Hmm. Sweet,” he mutters to himself. But then the memory of soft skin and the scent of cool rain and jasmine crashes their way into the forefront of his mind, and his lips curl into a dangerous smirk. 

“But not sweet enough.”

**Author's Note:**

> this kind of just demanded to be written tbh


End file.
